As the USC AAU study abroad entered its journey to Shanghai, we were bound to focus on the City as a protagonist of the metropolis life and facilitator of its cultural productions. So then as future architects we were required to critically engage its manifestations not only in the skin of its histories but also its mental and social complexities. My site, located at JiaShan Road and Shaanxi Nan Road in the French concession of Shanghai, focused on the aspect of landscape in which I believed could be the driving factor to bring the city and its large city blocks into a more unified metropolis. With the implementation of a landscape alley thoroughfare my project is able to engage the site and its current urban issues. The landscape, which ranges from 'top down' to 'bottom up' was then anchored by nodes of program generated by not only the needs to the people around it but is also derived in order to create a narrative that feeds of the natural phenomenons of the city. By using landscape and agriculture as a solution, I then am able to tap into a culture that bears into the depths of the Chinese culture. A culture that leaves no space left unused and no food left to waste. The Chinese live off bottom up culture and thus only bottom up generated architecture and urban concepts can only revitalize the city.

Digrams of integrated green path and nodes of program. Diagram also shows instead of tearing down and replacing with new programs that the use of existing programs and least amount of demolition is capable of creating an incubator program that will revitalize and unify area.

Site is separated into 5 zones, each generated by surroudning area and connected through landscaped path.